Although supposedly from separate “worlds” or at the least from different “sides” of a vicious war, ironically of all places on a planet caught in conflagration, the Midwest farm folk and German POWs who worked together some six decades ago on the vast North American prairie came into close contact--often literally elbow to elbow. Below are some remembrances of those encounters: we would welcome more.

Robert
Bakerrbaker@trvnet.net
In 1944 I was 10 years old and went with my dad (who was Humboldt County War
Savings Bond chairman) to a meeting at the Officer's Club at the Algona POW
camp. You can imagine how what I saw affected a 10 year old: a) guard towers
at the entrance, b) waiters in white jackets that, as I recall, were German
POWs, c) an open bar [Iowa of course then had no liquor by the drink] and d)
slot machines [Iowa then had no legal gambling]. I learned that Iowa law did
not apply on a "federal reservation".

Please accept these two army vehicles as a donation to TRACES'
[planned] museum [and current traveling German-POW exhibit]. They have been
packed in childhood things, and the box was just opened prior to TRACES'
presentation in Grand Rapids, Minnesota [in May 2003]. They were made for me by a German
POW in 1944 or 1945, who accompanied my father, Staff Sergeant Evert W.
Berg, on routine U.S. Army deliveries in an Army staff car from Fort
Snelling, Minnesota, to the Federal Building in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
During WWII Mother and I lived with her parents on 30th Avenue South in
Minneapolis, just off Hiawatha Avenue; Dad and the POW would often stop by
to visit. One day the POW gave me the two [handcrafted wood-and-canvas]
vehicles. That is all I know of him, but I remember that he was kind and
loved children. There is no name or photo of him.

I include a photo of Dad in uniform in the
hopes that this German POW, if still alive, might notice it and be able to
contact me.

I remember as a nine year old walking home from the fourth grade we would pass the E.G. Morse Poultry house
in Mason City, Iowa and see the
POWs working, loading trucks and the like. We thought they were monsters until we started waving at them and they waved back, which started a relationship that has lasted till this
day. (The E.G. Morse Poultry House was located just on the east side of the Minneapolis and
Saint Louis railroad tracks on 2nd Street Northeast. The building is still standing but not used anymore.)
I became friends with a POW named Hans (I never knew his last name) and when I asked him how Germany could do all the terrible things it was doing, he
said “The same thing could happen here if Dillinger was
President”. I never forgot that.

After some time we got permission to have him over to the house for dinner one Sunday. It was quite an experience for a young boy who was filled with all the propaganda of the times.

Evelyn
GrabowOne of the hundreds of thousands of
Upper Midwest women to respond to the call for wartime labor replacement
was young Evelyn Grabow of Owatonna/Minnesota. Like other temporary
female workers at a cannery there, Evelyn received notes (folded
up to sixteen times, into squares the size of communion wafers)
from German POWs who worked shifts opposite them. In turn many of
the Minnesota (and, presumably, other Midwest) natives left small
presents such as chocolate or handmade items on their stools for
the POWs when they left their shifts. Below are two notes that Evelyn
kept for over six decades:

Today, without demur, we meet us
last time. How variable is one’s character! In former times,
living in riot and revelry, I was often dissatisfied and now it makes
me inexpressible happy, only to see one person for some little seconds.
More, I cannot say!
Good-bye
be happy for ever!

[in pencil]

Is it possible, to be sad and happy in the same
time? Yes, I say.

Evelyn! Last time, I was very sorry, to cannot
have say you good bye, as I wanted to do it. Perhaps I work once
more Monday night, when the others have their free day. For the
case I cannot do so, I shall keep you in best remembrance for
ever. My instantaneous dead life here thwarts all my plans and
it is senseless, to meditate and to build castles in the air.
But what I have told to you was the plain, unvarnished truth and
my conviction. The feeling, to have made the acquaintance of one
person very congenious, makes me happy and I have a good knowledge
of human nature. From this country I get only unagreeable experiences.
This is a beautiful exception.
I congratulate you very much for future,
R.

And now you know: speech is silver, silence is golden!!!

The Marshall Company canning factory
in Waverly/Iowa placed an ad (left) for wartime labor replacement
in a Waverly newspaper. (courtesy of the Waverly Public Library)
German POWs (above) pack canned vegetables for shipping at a cannery.
(courtesy of Steve Feller, Coe College, Cedar Rapids/Iowa)

It
was D-Day, June 6, 1944, and everyone was in downtown Fairmont, Minnesota
to find out together how the boys were doing on the beaches of Normandy and
to share and comfort each other in the worry over it all. Some had sons,
grandsons and relatives there. The merchants had placed radios above entry
doors to hear the continuing news coverage, and semi-circles of hundreds of
people stood outside together at each store. I was nine at the time. Those boys
were our heroes, believe me! In front of Paulson’s Drug
Store I looked at
the man to my right along with his buddies--a German soldier, in
uniform, listening as intently as the rest of us. I nudged him with my elbow
and defiantly chided him with my finger thumping on my chest, “I am
Byron.” He nodded quickly and responded without gesture,
“Jerry.” Whether that was his name or the reference to Germans, I
did not know. A solitary tear effortlessly flowed down his cheek. A German
soldier crying--what is this? “Jerry” was one of the remnants of
Rommel’s fierce
Afrika Korps brought in regiment strength as POWs to do the work of Fairmont while her sons were away. He wanted to know
like everyone else that day what was happening. Enough people in Fairmont
spoke German to keep them advised. The war had come down to the two of us on
this momentous day, and there I stood next to the enemy ready to defend
Fairmont against them, even at my age! I will never forget "Jerry”
and that moment.

from
her book Eggs in the Coffee, Sheep in the Corn: My 17 Years as a
Farmwife (St. Paul: Minnesota
Historical Society Press, 1994; pages
55-62). Used with permission.

Once
we had made the move to the farm in 1943, with the draft board’s approval,
and settled into the unfamiliar routines, I had been able to keep the
ugliness of the Second World War II at the back of my mind. Two summers
later, however, all that changed. In the middle of haying, John—one of the
older hired hands—left for higher wages. He was not very energetic, but
that was hard to find when so many young men were in the service. We had
kept this hired man through the winter to be sure of having someone to count
on for the crop season. When we were unable to find a substitute for him,
Don had to work early and late, more than he could sustain.

As
the hot days and weeks followed, I kept wondering when the war would end and
we could find help for Don and return to a more normal life. When that
happened, I had heard, the town fathers planned to rename the streets of
Appleton [Minnesota], as memorials to our boys who had already died in
Europe and the Pacific. There was still a steady barrage of stories about
the ferocity of the German people under Hitler. We presumed it was partly
propaganda to bolster the war effort, but surely it must be based on
something. Could there be truth to the dreadful tales of atrocities?

Don
steadfastly refused to believe the rumors, saying, “They’re just people
like us, trying to get along in the world.” But for me war was madness.
Would I or my child someday have to lose a brother, husband, or son to war?
Tucking Anne in for her afternoon nap, I gave her a lingering hug, rejoicing
that she would never be called upon to carry a gun.

Resolutely,
I put these unsettling thoughts out of my mind and hurried to make bread. I
had just shaped six shiny, yeasty—smelling loaves when Don strode into the
kitchen and grabbed the phone. He sank gratefully onto the chair, mystifying
me with a brighter—than—usual smile. I knew he was bone weary. He had
managed to cut and bale three hundred acres of the best upland
hay—bluestem, redtop and bluegrass. Because he’d had no helper to do the
stacking as he ran the baler, the oblong, sixty—five—pound bales of
prime hay were left lying in the large field. Now ominous black clouds,
gathering in the west, threatened this important feed crop.

I spread a faded blue tea towel over the loaves where the sunshine would
help them rise, and I listened in growing bewilderment to his conversation.

“Am
I talking to the officer in charge?” he asked. “Can you send me twenty
of the prisoners tomorrow to stack hay bales—probably two days’ work?
I’ll pay four dollars per man. By eight o’clock? And you’ll send a
guard? And their food also? Sounds okay to me—tomorrow then.”

“What
in the world? What prisoners?” I gasped as soon as he put the phone down.

“The
mailman gave me the idea,” Don gloated. “Can you believe it? There are
German prisoners of war in a temporary camp at Ortonville—just twenty
miles away. We didn’t see it the day I drove you over there to Big Stone
Lake. I’d never even heard of it. But they hire out the men to farms
around here. I plan to get Bill Ahrens over to interpret. I’ll put a skid
on the other tractor. Twenty prisoners as farm hands! We’re all set.”

This is farming? I thought. I knew about Germans. Growing up, I had been
told how popular my father’s university classes in the German language had
been—before World War I. Then few people dared study German. He had become
an economist and also volunteered as a government “Dollar a Year Man,”
scanning German-American periodicals for any hint of disloyalty or
subversion. And in this war, while the fear of German Americans was
lessened, the new weapons of war made the carnage unspeakable. All the hate
talk came into focus. Mental pictures crowded back of butchered bodies on
bloody battlefields. Headlines had screamed, “Air Raid Kills 1,500
Civilians,” “Barbarous Bombing,” “Polish City in Flames.” Spy
posters of helmeted Germans with cat eyes warned: “HE’S WATCHING YOU.”
I still carried a feeling of shock from a small item I’d read in the
newspaper the year we moved to the farm. Apparently, a member of the
President Roosevelt’s own party condoned anti-Semitism on the floor of the
House and was not rebuked for it. While I seldom had time for the newspaper
since coming to the farm, I still wondered at the power of prejudice, never
guessing it would lead to the horrors of the Holocaust.

As
everyone else was caught up in the tide of hatred and fear, I, too, felt
myself shrink from having anything to do with the Germans. But no matter
where my political thoughts took me, in farming I had learned to ask
practical questions first. “Will they come to the house to eat? What
time?” I asked Don.

My
anxiety must have showed, for he pulled me down onto his lap. “For once,
you don’t have to think of food. The camp will send it along.”

“Coffee?”
I asked, noticing that his usual high color came back to his cheeks, smooth
now since their annual peeling from sun and wind. I smiled as he pushed his
fingers through his thick brown hair. I wished I’d known him when he’d
been nicknamed Curly—the president of his high school class, a star in
football, track and Glee Club.

“The camp manager says that everything is supplied. Just relax. When have
I had a chance to say that to you before? Not since we moved to the farm,”
Don laughed. “Enjoy it while you can. It will all work out,” he said and
kissed me.

Somewhat
reassured, I said “If only we’d get two more days of good weather before
that storm hits.”

After
I mentioned the weather, there was no hope of getting more information about
the prisoners. He gave me a quick hug and hurried out with an anxious look
at the darkening western sky.

As
I set about cleaning up the kitchen, I could not get the German prisoners
out of my mind. A temporary prisoner-of-war camp near Big Stone Lake, Don
had said. If I had my geography right, this lake drained south into the Minnesota River. Thus the lake water joined
little Pomme de
Terre River, which looped through our pasture a mile south of the buildings.
Men who had perhaps killed our own boys were living in custody that close to
us. Too close, I thought. How could Don be so calm about them, and even plan
to use them here!

Promptly
at eight o’clock the next morning, the German prisoners arrived in a big
pickup truck and were marched off to the west field in their rumpled,
ill-fitting work clothes. I studied them from our kitchen window. They had
none of the hangdog, discouraged look that I expected. Their youthfulness
also surprised me. With a spring in their step, two led the way. Many were
looking around curiously, as if taking mental note of an American stock
farm. The guard’s eyes darted about, his gun ready. He seemed out of
place—and yet reassuring. These were German soldiers, after all.

Marjorie
Douglas' mother-in-law, "Mother Douglas"

Mother
Douglas came up the lane to enjoy morning coffee with me. She was happily
feeding applesauce to Anne when Don hurried in to report on the workers’
progress. He said he had taken a look at the small amount of cheese, bread
and water provided for the noon meal and was appalled. “The guard argued
when I told him to give the men this food at ten o’clock,” Don said.
“He told me those weren’t his orders, but I said: ‘They’re working
for me now, and it’s backbreaking work stacking those bales. They need
plenty to eat.”‘ Don turned to me. “Can we rustle up some sandwiches
for their dinner?”

Remembering
his promise, I grinned and said nothing. He shrugged his shoulders
helplessly, and I had to laugh. I was learning fast that everything on a
farm revolves around food.

“Good
for you, Son. We’ll manage something,” Mother Douglas reassured him. She
smiled and glanced curiously at me, but said nothing more. Soon we were both
busy preparing two big pork roasts for the oven. Her patrician face grew
pink with her effort. Her cheerful energy and resourcefulness were never
exhausted, and she had Don’s easy way of making the best of whatever
happened.

Later,
Don told me that he had bought cigarettes, and the men were delighted when
he gave them each a pack at morning break. They sat or sprawled in the
sweet-smelling hay. Many of them spoke fairly adequate English, though with
a heavy guttural accent. They began to ask questions about the cost of
machinery and land. A blond young man ventured that he would like to return
to this country after the war was over. Several nodded in agreement.

A
slight fellow, hardly more than a boy, said shyly, “The Americans, they
sent Karl to work in town. For a mechanic. I was helper. We got wages. I
learned and saved.”

Afterwards
Don wondered whether they were perhaps better-fed and housed in the
converted youth camps here than in Germany. We knew nothing of their former
army conditions. Don had learned that the camps provided showers and
recreation rooms, small libraries, and playing fields. There were even
musical instruments, and some did wood carving. The men appeared to be in
good health.

At
noon he and Papa drove the pickup to the field with our lunch—hearty
sandwiches of homemade bread with thick crusty slabs of the meat. We put in
baskets of tomatoes with saltshakers, lots of coffee, and hot apple pie
sweetened with Karo syrup—our wartime sugar substitute. The meal was a
treat to the men, and they showed their appreciation by working faster than
anyone would have expected.

The
rows of finished haystacks grew slowly but steadily, and Don and Bill Ahrens
covered them with sheets of neoprene and tied them down with rope. The
clouds hung heavy in the sky, and the shirts of the men showed dark patches
of sweat in the sultry heat. Don began to believe he had a chance to save
most of the crop. Well over half of the field was finished when the huge
Minneapolis- Moline tractor stopped abruptly. The men gathered around it. A
small part in the carburetor had broken. Don made the familiar dash to town
for a replacement, but he returned half an hour later to report that the
part was unavailable. They would simply have to give up any idea of
finishing today and continue to do the best they could with the big old
International Harvester M.

Don Douglas with his children

The
man called Karl stepped up and looked closely at the broken part. “A piece
of sheet metal you have got?” he asked. “And a coarse file? A few
minutes only I need. That old part, it cannot be fixed. But a new one, that
is easy.”

He
and Don hurried to the shop building crowded with tools and broken parts.
Karl had been silent when some of the younger men had asked questions, but
now as he worked he kept glancing at Don.

Suddenly
he burst out, “I suppose you hate us?” “Well, now, I don’t know how
you get into the army over there,” Don began.

“A
card to us is sent. It says, ‘Come!’”

“Same
here” Don replied. “Then they give us a gun and issue some ammo, and we
go and shoot at each other.”

Karl
gave him a look that Don found to be at once searching and full of
gratitude. They completed the work in what had become a comfortable,
companionable silence. When the two men returned to the field, no one was
surprised that the tractor part fit perfectly.

With
only a quick afternoon stop for more sandwiches, fresh doughnuts and coffee,
the men finished what Don had thought would be two days’ work. Don
continued covering stacks until, when he came in for a warmed-over supper at
ten, he could say the job was literally all wrapped up.

The
storm broke noisily about midnight and woke us. Nearly three inches of rain
soaked into the thirsty fields, but our precious hay crop was safe and
reasonably dry.

We
never saw these men again. The Ortonville camp closed in September, and the
prisoners were probably moved to the main camp in Algona, Iowa before their
return to Germany. Did any of them ever follow their dream and come back to
our shores? We have often wondered. Although Don had offered to give them
what help he could should they return, we heard nothing. Wherever they are,
I hope they sometimes have warm memories of that day.

Next morning the sun sparkled on the wet fields. I drank in the pervasive
peace that follows a storm. My anxieties had been washed away.

It
was late summer on a farm south of Fairmont, Minnesota. A group of POWs had
come
to help my father, George

Siems,
harvest his grain.Father
said these men were to be treated and fed just like any other thrashing crew
that may have helped them. That meant that they ate inside, around the old
oak table laden with a lot of home-cooked food. Which, considering the
circumstances, wasn’t the case at every farm where they worked. My mother
recalls that some of the POWs wouldn’t come into the house to eat, but
most of the men did and enjoyed the food--and the polka and waltz music
played on the record player. Some of them said it was the first “real”
music they had heard in over a year.

My mother said one young
man, in his early 20’s, spoke pretty good English. He told them that he
was from Austria and that this wasn’t “his” fight--that the German
army came through the towns and villages and “took” anyone who could
fight. He said he left his young wife and an infant son. He said he was so
worried about them and worried if he would find them all right after the
war.

I
was about six months old at that time. This young man asked if he could just
reach out and touch me. Without saying a word, Mother picked me and
handed me to him. She said he staid there rocking and patting me, with tears
streaming down his face. And, she recalled what was so remarkable about it
was that I was not crying when this stranger picked me up, but contentedly
smiling up at him.

He said the
people of Fairmont, for the most part, had been very kind to them. And if he
could, he wanted to return to the U.S. after the war and live around Fairmont.
My mother said that while there were some ex-POWs who did return, they never
heard from this young man again. By the time I heard this story, she had no
longer remembered his name or if he said where in Austria he was from.

I was too little to remember WWII, but it had a profound effect
on me. To me it was about people and howit effected the families of soldiers on both sides.

I never
knew his name, but I will always remember the young man who held me in
that summer of ’44 and cried for his lost family.

Today, if he is still alive, this man probably has grandchildren
or great-grandchildren the age I was back then. I wonder--does he sometimes
think back when he is holding them? Does he remember the little curly-headed
blond baby girl that smiled up at him as he held her that hot Minnesota
August day, in 1944?

Click here for one German POW's story of
how he experienced Midwesterners from "the other side".